Monstrous Indignities

Sitting amongst those ghastly suits at 26,000 feet, not even able to see the clouds through the narrow window, not a ruffle of humour, nothing. Silence, as they sit, trapped animals, their eyes, while not dowe like unlit by any kind of passion or hysteria, much less compassion; and the wakes, the course of our lives unfold down channels we could never have imagined. The juvenile bullying and the monstrous mauling, these snivelling inheritors of the 1980s managerial cults, lifeless, gutless pygmies who can all fuck off and die as far as I'm concerned. I'm just going to get on with it; keep my side of the street clean; do what I'm good out; poorly paid, poorly resourced and poorly treated; dignity lies only within the self.

Howard has finally met with the Dalai Lama. How outrageous he should have ever thought otherwise.


The story continues:

"Then some kind soul, one of his flatmates in fact, blurted it out to her. But I thought he was gay!

"Anna had gone white with shock. She had no idea. It wasn't the era to be sleeping with bisexuals, certainly not without a condom. His HIV had been negative and he had assumed he had been safe because he didn't like being fucked and had a steady boyfriend through the periods of high transmission. But she wasn't to know that.

"We've got to talk, she said, in one of those tones which have driven fear into men's hearts since time immemorial, there's something about your past that I know and you don't think I know."